Linda Barlow (13 page)

"They are both at fault. Neither will give in." Dorcas' large gray eyes were alight with pain. "All I know is that I have no child and I don't want to lose my husband. One of these hateful tantrums could kill him."

Alexandra leapt to her feet. She put her arms around Dorcas and gave her a hug. "Come, I don't believe in passively awaiting disaster. Let's go and put a stop to their quarreling once and for all." She marched out into the gallery, with Dorcas and Alan hurrying after.

"How? What d'you intend to do?" Alan asked. "You can't stop them. Nothing will ever do that."

"We can't heal the breach between them, but mayhap we can prevent Roger from killing his father. Has anyone ever told him how ill the baron is? I can't believe he would deliberately drive the baron to another heart seizure."

"He probably wants Father dead so he take over the barony."

"Stuff and nonsense! He's not Malice Incarnate."

As Dorcas had said, they could hear the quarrel as soon as they stepped out into the gallery. The door to the winter parlor was open and neither man was making any attempt at restraint.

"I'm blasted if I'll sit up here in the country like the proverbial rusty-armored knight, growing weeds and counting livestock," Roger was saying.

"It suited your brother well enough."

"Damn my brother! I'm fed up with hearing about his loyalty to Whitcombe, his submission to you, and his supposed devotion to Alexandra and her father's fat purse and conveniently adjoining lands. I don't think you've fully faced it yet: your precious eldest son is dead, and you're not likely to turn me into the paragon you seem to think he was."

Alexandra backed away. "They're fighting about that wretched marriage. I don't want to hear it."

But she could hardly help hearing; no doubt the entire household was privy to the baron's battle with his son. "You have responsibilities, whether you like them or not," the baron was shouting. "One is to marry and beget an heir, and Alexandra would make you an excellent wife. Besides the pragmatic considerations of the match, she is a bright and virtuous girl, of good family, well-educated, and much loved by all—"

"I'm well aware of her virtues. She's got too damn many of them. I prefer the ladies of the court, the city, and the docks. Whores, in other words. They suit me well."

"You've had ten years of lechery and vice. That ought to be enough for any man."

"Ah, but I've developed nasty habits." Alexandra could imagine Roger's careless shrug, his sardonic smile. "Lechery and vice amuse me. I would hate to expose the fair Alexandra to the darker side of my nature. No, Father. If you care for the girl, you will guard her from me, not nudge her in my direction."

"A good and innocent maiden might cure this heaviness that sits upon your soul."

Roger laughed shortly. "I think not. Dangle no virgins before me unless you want to see them ruined. I'm going to court. There I will find women to match me in vice, whatever their professed religion."

"I forbid you to go to court. I'm damned if I'll have you mixed up with the bloody papists."

"You forbid me?" He laughed again, even more harshly this time. "Perhaps you can intimidate Alan in that manner, but I shall please myself. Still, I wouldn't despair if I were you. I lead a dangerous life, and it may well be a short one. With luck I'll meet a premature death, and you can mold Alan into a virtuous country squire. I never asked to be your goddamn heir."

"You're not as indifferent as you pretend to be. You vanish for ten years, but no sooner is your elder brother dead than you appear at my gates again. There's something damned odd about that, if you ask me."

"Dear precious Whitcombe," Roger mocked. "Next you'll be saying I murdered Will for the lands, the wealth, and the title. His death is in doubt, as they say. I'm astonished you haven't accused me already."

"If I had a scrap of evidence, I wouldn't hesitate to accuse you. You were always jealous of your brother."

Alexandra swallowed hard, aghast. Roger had been jealous, yes, but not of Will's rights as heir to the barony. All Roger had wanted as a child was to be accorded the same amount of affection his older brother received from their father.

"What a convenient way to be rid of me," Roger said. "Hang me as a murderer. What a shame it's so difficult to kill a man in the north of England from the quarterdeck of a trading vessel in the Middle Sea. The magistrates would laugh you out of chambers." There was a taut silence; then he went on, "It is plain enough that the wrong son died. Misfortune dogs us both. As far as I'm concerned, the wrong parent died."

"You wouldn't be so quick to say that if you knew the truth about your mother," the baron was driven to retort.

Roger's voice rose in pitch. "If you imagine I'll stay here to listen to you blacken her name, you're mistaken."

There was a rapid step; then, before anybody could move, Roger stormed into the gallery. "Oh, perfect! What have we here but the sweetly virginal heiress who's supposed to snatch my blackened soul from the devil's pit."

Alexandra was directly in his path. When she did not step aside, he put both hands on her waist, lifted her slightly, and moved her. His hands were warm. One of them brushed across the bodice of her gown as he set her back on her feet. The pendant he had given her sang against her throat. "My honored father would have me wed you and lawfully beget grandchildren for him. But, lecherous villain that I am, I would prefer to divest you of your virtue and leave you weeping." He shook his dark head, and then thrust her away. "Get out of my sight." Pushing past her, he strode off down the gallery to the stairs that led down and out of the keep.

Alexandra tried to control a barrage of feelings that ranged from fury at his offensiveness to a weak-kneed awareness of the burning spots on her body where he had touched her. She threw back her shoulders and started after him.

Alan tried to stop her. "Let him go," he begged her, but she hardly heard. She tore down the winding staircase and out into the courtyard. She saw Roger ahead of her, striding through the inner courtyard, past the stables, through the outer courtyard, and out the castle gates at a killing pace. He jogged rapidly down the hill for a ways, then turned and set off over the moors. Breaking into a run, she chased him, eventually catching up with him in a grassy dip between two rolling hills.

At first he ignored her; then he was moved to snap, "I meant what I said. Follow me and I'll do you a mischief."

She planted herself in his path again, saying, "I do not doubt it, but I mean to speak my mind anyhow. Your father nearly died last winter of a heart seizure. His physician has warned that ill temper and excitement could bring on another. Perhaps you're ignorant of that, or perhaps you do not care. But keep it up if you wish to be lord of Whitcombe; keep it up if you want vengeance for every wrong that was ever done you. Keep taunting and baiting and battling that old man until you kill him, if you truly believe his death will bring you peace."

She paused, short of breath, her side needling with pain from the chase. When he didn't move or speak, she hazarded a glance at his face. His lips were pressed together; his eyes looked into hers as if he wished to turn her inside out. The silence stretched on like a dream.

At last he stirred, passing the back of his hand over his brow. For an instant he looked unutterably weary. Blindly she reached out to him, offering the same refuge she'd lent him as a child years before. But when her fingers touched his sleeve, his eyebrows winged and his mouth twisted with a humorless smile. There was no warmth in that look, and none of the affection he had briefly shown her earlier in the day.

"Brave Alexandra. You'll face anything, won't you? I can rant and threaten, but it doesn't move you. No matter what I do or say, you continue to appeal to the good in me, with perfect faith that you will find it. After all, you are an excellent judge of character."

She flushed at the sarcasm. One of his hands began to fiddle with a loose loop of her hair, pulling it, wrapping it around his fingers. At his touch, she fell a tightening somewhere in the pit of her belly.

"Do you really think I'd shed a tear if the old bastard fell dead at my feet? For the most trifling transgressions, he used to flog me until the blood ran. Do you remember that?" He tugged on her hair, bringing her closer. His brown eyes were hot with anger and long-buried pain. "If there had been any justice in it, I could have accepted it, but there was none. I've tried to forget, I've even tried to forgive. But he hasn't changed, and neither, it seems, have I."

"Why did you come home? If you could not forgive him, why come back at all? Your return at such a time made it seem to everyone that you intended to step into Will's shoes."

"My return had nothing to do with Will's death," he said, frowning. "'Twas pure coincidence that he should have died so soon before I landed in England."

As he spoke, an uneasy feeling swept her, something she could not name. Suspicion played at the edge of her consciousness. She sensed a lie. "When, exactly, did you return to England?"

She felt him staring narrowly at her. His finger moved over her cheek and he used it to lift her chin, forcing her to meet his dark, shadowed eyes. "Why do you ask? Don't tell me you also suspect me of Cain's crime?"

"Of course not," she said, but something was bothering her, niggling at her brain, some piece of information that she had either missed or forgotten. She wondered what he would say if she told him it was not Cain’s crime she suspected him of, but of possible involvement in a plot to assassinate the queen.

"No, you wouldn't doubt me, would you?" His other hand was touching her too, moving slowly up her right arm from her elbow to her shoulder, exploring, caressing. His thumb pressed back and forth across her collarbone, then found the pulse at the base of her throat and his pendant beneath it. He pressed lightly on the pendant, and she could feel the four corners of the silver setting nip against her skin. The yearning that had been gathering in her belly unfurled and spread, sending heat spiraling out to every nook and cranny of her body. Why did it feel so exciting every time he touched her? She could hardly focus on his words as he continued, "You've always trusted me to the point of foolhardiness. Even when we were children and I played vile tricks on you, you used to laugh and forgive me. Would it be like that still? Can I do anything I want to you and get away with it?"

One arm fell to her waist and drew her against his body. He felt tense and hard all over. Inexperienced though she was, she sensed his sudden lust, and the edge of aggression in it. She tried for a moment to pull away. His arm like a bar at her waist restrained her, keeping her close. He arched against her and she could feel his heart beating against her breasts, his loins seeking hers through the thick layers of her skirts. "This probably isn't a good idea," she said as he bent his head to kiss her. His response was a low growl as his mouth began to plunder hers.

Alexandra's senses leapt as his kiss deepened. He was toying with her, she knew, and she really shouldn't allow it. It wasn't as if he cared about the feelings he could so easily arouse in her. He was angry, and taking it out on her. She tried to close him out, to keep her lips from parting, but she found this remarkably difficult. "Kiss me," he ordered, raising his lips a fraction of an inch from hers. The tip of his tongue stroked her from one corner of her mouth to the other; then his teeth closed over her bottom lip and nipped it gently. She moaned; fire seemed to flash through her veins. "Or resist me. Let’s see which of the two you choose."

Resist him? Why would she do that? She wrapped her arms around him and nestled close. It didn't matter why he was doing this. Nothing mattered but the rising tide of passion in her blood. Roger turned his head slightly so his lips slanted over hers while his tongue sought new depths, new angles. One of his hands glided through her thick hair, caressing her scalp rhythmically. The other hand pressed at the back of her waist, guiding her against him, teaching her even more clearly than last time the contours of his body. For an instant she shied, but he pulled her closer still, kissing her until the sky above her whirled and the world tilted on its axis.

Sweet Jesu! Desire was a fever, softening her flesh, dampening her skin. Roger's hands weren't particularly gentle, nor was his kiss, but it didn't matter—her own hunger was as deep as his. She met his intrusive tongue with her own, eagerly copying his motions, learning from him. She reveled in the sensations that were flooding her body, so hot, so sweet. She wanted to feel more, know more. This racing of the blood, this swelling of the breasts and aching of the loins, this strange, irrational light-headedness. She wanted to experience it all to the fullest. Not even in her wildest fantasies had she imagined anything could feel so lovely.

And then his hands were pushing her back slightly, his fingers were fumbling with her bodice. Oh God, he was going to touch her bare breasts. She wanted him to. "Here," she said, helping him push aside the simple woven fabric. His dark eyes shot her a heated glance as he slipped one hand in beneath the bodice and then beneath her fragile chemise to smooth the firm, soft flesh of her breast. He was being gentler now; he no longer seemed angry, he even smiled at her. She sensed that whatever had impelled him to begin this had shifted and transformed into something else. Something real. He wanted her, she realized, every bit as much as she wanted him. His body trembled with it, his skin was flushed and damp against her own as his palm slid back and forth, up and down over the small mound, exploring her, caressing her.